Encounters in the Deep (1979)

ENCOUNTERS IN THE DEEP is a poor and fumbled attempt to cash-in on two separate and popular Hollywood sub-genres of the era: the underwater exploration movie inspired by THE DEEP (and JAWS before it), and the alien encounter flick stemming from Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Sadly, in the hands of Italian trash director Tonino Ricci, this film is a hopeless mess for fans of either genre, and that comes from somebody who's a fan of some of the director's output, like RUSH: THE ASSASSIN and its sequel. The fumbled premise has a diver hunting for extraterrestrials beneath the waves, but the story is alternatively muddled and dragged out and made little sense to me. Andres Garcia parades around in his swimwear a lot but has little acting talent while the clumsy special effects are quite pitiful. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this turgid enterprise.

To say this film is a fantastic piece of filmography would be an understatement. Made in 1979, the practical effects still stand up to this day. The storyline of finding an underwater world inhabited by aliens in the Bermuda Triangle is quite simply inspired! I watched the English dub of the film and the actors used conveyed the emotions shown by the characters in the film perfectly. I can't believe "Mike" didn't gain more recognition for his portrayal of "Crazy Eyes".This film is quite simply one of the best films I've seen of late and it would be great to see it rebooted, possibly with Jean Claude Van Damme.10/10

Ever wanted to watch a movie about a bunch of guys in boat doing absolutely nothing for an hour and a half? Just admit it, we all have. Tonino Ricci (director of Night of the Sharks and Days of Hell) brings us what we've always yearned for in the form of Encounters in the Deep! It's kind of some sort of rip-off of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, set on the sea (Tonino is a bit obsessed with the sea), without the special effects, but with the added bonus of not having Richard whats-his-face in it. Boats and such like keep going missing in the Bermuda Triangle, and once a rich guy's daughter goes missing, it's up to our heroes to head out to the sea and find her! Well, they do a lot of swimming at least. And I suppose they do sort of find her, but not after dodging sharks and dodgy lights set to bizarre moogs outbursts. And…one of them turns a bit strange, which riles their dog…and erm…there's an old man…and…um… Look, this is THE most uneventful Italian film I've ever sat through. Apart from the various boat disappearances at the beginning of the film (a toy boat in a tub, no less), nothing of any consequence happens until the last ten minutes, and even then you'll be thinking 'is that it?'. The film does have a slight naive charm and the effects are pretty funny, but it's lacking in any elements that make for a great Italian genre movie (no action, no gore, no nudity, no style). Tonino Ricci, sadly, doesn't do anything here but waste time. If you want to see something decent (i.e hilarious) from him, watch his action movie Days of Hell.Unnervingly, this isn't the worst Italian movie I've watched – That would have to be War of the Robots, which was so bad it actually caused me physical pain.

What do we know about the Bermuda Triangle other than what dozens of "experts" tell us? The fact that so many ships and planes have disappeared in this region will probably remain a mystery same as UFOs. But there's also the fact that no one has yet burrowed BELOW the bed of the ocean or even tried to find Glenn Miller's plane?. Here some attempt is made to suggest that an Alternative Universe exists well below the sea and that it may very well hold the answer to all the UFO activity. Imagine UFOs don't come from out of the sky but out of the sea where they cruise the skies looking for a place to land. I've seen a UFO and they glide before disappearing-just like so many have said.